


We made these memories for ourselves

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Timestamp, Wedding Planner!Dan, Weddings, photographer!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 21:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17169923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: An epilogue forForever Frozen Still





	We made these memories for ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> You probably need to read the original for this to make sense.

Phil should be surprised to see Louise there when he arrives, but he really isn't. 

"You called in the big guns, huh?" he says, placing the closed-up tupperware down next to Dan's elbow and leaning down to brush his lips against Dan's cheekbone. 

"What is this?" Dan says, looking up as if only just noticing Phil is there. "Why are you here?" 

"I brought you lunch," Phil says, "because there's no way you remembered you needed to buy some." 

"I would have remembered," Dan insists. 

Phil looks over at Louise and shares a knowing look. Dan is stubborn, and Phil is learning to let it go every now and again. He just likes to feel in control of everything, including his own emotions, so Phil lets him think he's got some secrets when he needs to. 

"Is he behaving himself?" Phil says to Louise. 

Dan huffs from behind his desk, but he doesn't offer an argument. Phil sits on the sofa against the wall. Dan's office is still overwhelmingly monochrome, but Phil always turns up in a bundle of colour and Dan lets him disrupt it for the time that he's there. 

"Never," Louise says, holding two photographs in her hands. "I'm not sure on which of these I like best." 

She holds both of them out to Phil.

"What?" 

"Professional opinion?" she says, batting her eyelashes. 

The fluttering lashes thing doesn't work on Phil, but he likes Louise enough to he accept the photographs from her anyway and look down at them. 

"No," Dan says, looking up suddenly, finally interrupted from whatever it is that is making his brow furrow. 

"Huh?" 

"I told you Lou, Phil isn't doing wedding photography anymore." 

"I was just asking him to look at them so I could choose--"

Dan levels her with a stare. It's the one he gets that says 'I know you better than you think I do'. Phil has been on the receiving end of it more times than he can count. 

Dan slides out from behind the desk and snatches the photographs out of Phil's hand before he can look at them. He looks down, weighs up his options, and passes one back to Louise. 

"This one," he says. "Stop trying to convince him to get involved." 

Louise has the good sense to look a little sheepish at least, not that Phil feels any ill will at her attempt. This is a fairly big deal for them, one that is stressing them out considerably going by the fact that Dan is only in his shirt, jacket discarded on the back of his chair, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

"And you," Dan says, rounding on him. "Why aren't you at the gallery?" 

"I came to bring you lunch," Phil repeats, as if he hadn't said it a few minutes ago.

It's his turn to get the look from Dan. 

"Fine," Phil says. "I missed you." 

Dan stares at him. Phil being so openly affectionate in the company of other people- even if it is just Louise- isn't Dan's favourite thing. But it's true, they've both been working so hard that it feels as if Phil hasn't seen him half as much as he wants to, and he doesn't feel like keeping that low key. 

Phil is proud of the way Dan only barely looks over his shoulder to see how much attention Louise is paying before he nods and says, "Yeah. Me too. Sorry… it's just this whole-"

"No," Phil interrupts him before he can take too much of it onto himself. Because Phil isn't blaming him, it's just how these things go sometimes "I know this is important to you." 

"He's just a low-level politician," Dan says, shrugging it off, like he hadn't talked Phil's ear off about said politician and how excited he was to be organising his campaign fundraiser. 

"Hmm," Phil says, sagely. "Didn't you say he was on course to be Prime Minister in a few years?" 

Dan shrugs, nonchalant, a patch of pink appearing on one cheek. It contrasts with the crisp white of his shirt, it's the one with silver lines on the collar. Versace or something. He looks beautiful in it, as always. 

"I know organising this kind of thing is a bit of a different step for you, you need to focus." 

"But I feel bad." It's fairly blatant as far as open affection goes. A little too honest, Dan must really be wrung out. "I should be helping you. Your show is a big deal too."

Dan steps over the outstretched length of Phil's legs and sits next to him on the couch. He's one long line as he tips his head back against the back of it. 

Phil still thinks about what a lovely picture he makes often. When he's like this, tense and held like a taunt bow string, he's a rush of madness under the surface. Phil wants to set a long shutter speed and capture the streaks of colour as the light zips behind his eyes. If only. 

He also enjoys Dan slow and ruffled in the mornings. A tangled mess of curls hunched over a coffee cup, or soft eyes in their bed sheets, light heather-grey contrasting against the slight tan of his skin still left over from when they went to Italy last summer, when Phil just _had_ to photograph the Blue Grotto on the Amalfi Coast.

Dan hadn't understood the appeal, at first, but as soon as they entered the cave, their small unstable boat gliding peacefully in the emerald-blue water, Phil had watched his eyes go wide and an expression of pure, unfiltered wonder flood his features. 

It was everything Phil had thought it would be, the deep black dark of the caves, sunlight peeking in, illuminating the clear water like everything was on fire from underneath. 

The picture he'd taken of Dan, a blue ethereal glow on the extremities of his profile, but otherwise thrown into relief by the golden sunset on shallow waves, was the only picture of him to make it into Phil's first gallery show. 

Later, they'd sat in an open-fronted restaurant and sampled the local dishes on offer, content and happy, hair a wild mess with sea water. They'd drank too much Limoncello after dinner, sitting there until late into the night, and then fallen over each other on the way back to the hotel. It had been one of the best weeks of Phil's life. Second only to the week before they went, the reason they were there.

"It's almost done." 

Dan sighs, a long slow sound. "Can we do something once all this is over?" 

"Like what?" 

Dan shrugs, "I don't know. Something." 

Louise walks over then, standing in front of them with her hands on her hips. 

"I tell you what you can do," she says, "find a replacement for that god awful stock picture." 

She's looking over their heads at the photograph on the wall. It's been there so long that Phil doesn't even notice it any more, but he tips his head back to look at it now. It really is awful. 

"It's fine," Dan says. 

"I thought for sure you'd replace it with your own wedding photo," Louise say, and by this point her argument is an old one. "But you had to go and… Who doesn't have a photographer at their own wedding?" 

"You are going to let that go at some point, right?" Dan says. 

"I just… Don't you want to remember it?" 

Phil looks over at Dan. He can still see him at the altar, perfect in his tailored suit, as relaxed and cool on the outside as the moment Phil first saw him. Except by then, nearly a year after they'd finally admitted their feelings, he'd gotten used to spotting the signs that meant Dan wasn't as relaxed as he looked. The way his fingers drummed against his own thigh, eyes darting from Phil to the crowd and back again. He can picture clearly the moment he'd taken Dan's hand between his own and squeezed, whispered that everything would be alright. It was just him and Phil in center frame, everything else was just a faded blur in the background. 

"We wanted to keep it just for us," Phil says. "Not static in a picture." 

Dan smiles at him, looking less stressed than he has the entire time Phil has been here. 

"No photographs," Dan says, his voice low. 

It throws Phil back to that day in his studio. It feels so long ago now, and the pictures on his wall back then feel like a distant memory. He still has them, somewhere, but the image of Dan he keeps now is a tactile one. 

The soft sweep of his fingertips, the warm plush of his mouth, the spicy scent of his cologne and the sound of his breathing in the dark when Phil wakes in the night, lulling him back to sleep. 

Dan is more than a beautiful image. He's everything. 

"You guys are weird," Louise says, finally. 

They are weird. They'd agreed to a future together, a commitment. Promised forever without believing in happy endings because nothing in life is guaranteed, so why not embrace every moment anyway. Sometimes it's work, like now, when he wants nothing more than to stay here with Dan but he has to go. When Dan is working late nights because he's finally organising something that isn't a wedding, something he believes in. Giving in to his ideals for once, shaking off a little of that cynicism. 

It's hard when Dan shuts down, when he has days where he can't give in to Phil's sometimes over zealous sentimentality. It's give and take, learning to navigate it all together. To take whatever image it is they create in that moment rather than wishing it was something different. They've learnt not to worry about it being picture perfect all the time. 

At that moment, the door opens once again and Dodie enters the room, mobile phone in her hand that she's clearly only just stopped using. She's a permanent fixture now, a fully fledged member of the team rather than Dan's assistant. She requires very little coaching these days, but when she does Dan is better at it all the time.

"Sorry," she says, noticing the way they are all clearly taking a break. "The caterer just rang and-- Do you want me to come back later?" 

Phil looks over at Dan and grins, "no rest for the wicked, eh?" 

"No worries Dodie, let's sort out whatever it is," Dan says, "My husband was just leaving. He has a very important art show next week and there is loads to do." 

Phil takes his cue and stands up, Dan following after. He leans over and kisses him once, quick and perfunctory but nonetheless nice. 

"Don't forget to eat your lunch," he says, then, turning to Louise. "Make sure he eats it." 

"Will do." 

Dan looks grumpy at the accusation, but Phil knows there's no real heat to it. 

"See you at home?" he says. 

"Yeah," Dan replies, "See you at home."


End file.
